On Dec. 24, 2021, a magnitude 4 marsquake rocked the Red Planet, triggering sensors on NASA’s Insight lander. Now, scientists know exactly what shook things up. Before and after images captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter confirmed it was a meteoroid impact –— the largest on record in the entire solar system. The impact crater, … Read more
A series of sudden and colossal spikes in radiation levels across Earth’s history could have come from a series of unknown, unpredictable and potentially catastrophic cosmic events, a new study has revealed. Named Miyake events after the lead author of the first study to describe them, the spikes occur roughly once every 1,000 years or … Read more
As Elton John once sang, “Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids; in fact, it’s cold as hell.” But new research suggests that Martian chill could allow bacteria to survive for up to 280 million years below the planet’s surface. The finding raises hopes that traces of ancient life — or even … Read more
Among the countless stars glittering in the vastness of space, some are so old they have experienced the dawn of the universe, and others are so young that not even the most powerful telescopes on Earth have been able to observe them. But is it possible to know which star is the youngest and which … Read more
A potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid is spinning faster and faster every year, and researchers aren’t sure why. The space rock, known as 3200 Phaethon, is around 3.4 miles (5.4 kilometers) wide, and its orbit through the solar system takes it closer to the sun than any other named asteroid, reaching a minimum distance of around … Read more
Astronomers have spotted a black hole mysteriously spewing up chunks of a devoured star several years after consuming it. The event, which scientists have classified as AT2018hyz, began in 2018 when astronomers saw the black hole ensnare a hapless star in its strong gravitational pull before shredding it to pieces. Then, three years later, in … Read more
Ancient microbial life on Mars could have destroyed the planet’s atmosphere through climate change, which ultimately led to its extinction, new research has suggested. The new theory comes from a climate modeling study that simulated hydrogen-consuming, methane-producing microbes living on Mars roughly 3.7 billion years ago. At the time, atmospheric conditions were similar to those … Read more
Researchers studying the aftermath of a gargantuan black hole collision may have confirmed a gravitational phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago. According to new research published today (Oct. 12) in the journal Nature (opens in new tab), the phenomenon — which is known as precession and is similar to the wobbling motion sometimes … Read more
A new photo taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed the hidden gaseous “bone” structure of a distant galaxy — and it’s absolutely spectacular. The cosmic knot of gas, dust and stars belongs to the spiral galaxy IC 5332, located in the constellation Sculptor more than 29 million light-years from Earth. As … Read more
As far as stars go, our sun gets a lot of fanfare. Not only does life on Earth literally revolve around it, it dwarfs the rest of the stars in the sky — from our perspective, at least. But if you zoom out to the far reaches of our galaxy, the sun no longer looks … Read more
